


Always and Forever, By Your Side

by necroneol



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: M/M, dreameater!Riku
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 11:06:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18072272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/necroneol/pseuds/necroneol
Summary: "'And now here you are again, looking out for me always. Always…”'///Expanding on Dream Eater Riku, mostly on the idea that he permanently bears the mark of a Dream Eater after DDD. Because I know KH3 is still unexplored and unfinished by some (including me somewhat) I feel I should say there are no KH3 spoilers here :)





	Always and Forever, By Your Side

The first time, Sora had easily passed it off as a trick of the light. Riku, standing, turning away from his companion—and there, a flash of something familiar, a smear of luminescence upon his back; and Sora, squinting, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, found nothing to explain the strange color that had winked at him from between Riku’s shoulder blades. Riku had asked why he was staring so funny, put a palm to his cheek and wondered if he had something on his face, but Sora had done nothing but shook his head, and assured him there was nothing at all.

The second time, even, Sora let it slide. Riku, sweating and bent over his knees, Keyblade gripped loosely in his left hand. Over his bowed head and curved back, Sora saw a hint of something again, bright pink and gold, faint and sparkling like glitter. But when he had stepped forward to examine his friend, the vision was gone as if it had never been there in the first place, and Sora was left to rock back on his heel in confusion.

But the third time, the fourth, the fifth—there was no pretending anymore. Sora didn’t know what he was seeing, but he knew he wasn’t imagining things. The only problem was, no one else seemed to notice it. Or if they did, they never said anything. Maybe Sora had been left out of the loop somewhere along the line, dozed off during one too many meetings and missed some crucial Riku-related info. Whatever the situation, all he could think to do was to just take it to Riku directly, and find out at last what in the hell the phantom meant.

The day was winding down now. Sora and Riku had spent the majority of their time sparring, practicing spells and meditating in their own ways, as they often did per Master Yen Sid’s instructions. It was an easy routine, though physically taxing; quick to get used to, and hard to find useless. Sora sat legs crossed on the floor beside Riku, who had his head tipped back and his water bottle uncapped and pressed to his lips. Sora watched his Adam’s apple bob with every desperate swallow through bleary eyes. He reached slowly for his own water bottle, keeping his gaze on the boy beside him, watching him even as he blindly unscrewed his cap and took a small sip.

Riku swiped an arm over his forehead as he lowered his bottle and capped it. He glanced sideways, and started a little when he caught Sora’s eyes boring into him. The boy squirmed under the unexpected pressure, and straightened up a little. He swallowed hard as Sora, seemingly embarrassed, turned his head.

The silver-haired boy cleared his throat.

“Something on your mind, Sora?”

Sora pressed his lips together, and set his bottle between his crossed legs. He hesitated for a good bit, opening his mouth, closing it, opening it again, before finally admitting, “Yeah.”

Riku waited impatiently for an explanation, but when he got none, he prompted nervously, “And? You’ve been staring at me all week. It’s getting kind of weird.”

“I’m sorry,” Sora’s cheeks turned bright red, “I’m not trying to be creepy, I promise. I need to talk to you, okay? It might sound a little…funny, but I think it’s important, so don’t be weird about it or anything.”

“I’m not gonna ‘be weird about it,’ Sora, whatever it is,” Riku’s voice softened now, and he unhitched himself from the wall and turned to face the boy below him. Riku held out a hand. Sora took it, and hoisted himself to his feet, taking his bottle with him. As Sora reached down to retrieve his jacket from the floor where he had tossed it during their training session, Riku added honestly, “You know you can tell me anything.”

Sora said nothing, but the timid smile on his lips when he turned back around was enough.

 

 

“So, what’s up?”

Riku closed the door behind him as he followed Sora into the large bedroom they shared with Kairi. Fitted with three beds and a bathroom to share, it was clear to see who’s side was who’s. The level of mess, and the general decor was so different from bed to bed, it seemed comical. Sora, who had the middle bed, stepped over his own piles of clean and dirty clothes, and flopped down on the edge of his bed. Riku, after a moment of thought, followed him, and decided to sit down beside the other boy, rather than across from him. A sign of closeness, and an attempt at wordlessly reassuring Sora that he was here to listen to his worries unconditionally.

“Okay, so, I don’t know if I’m just, like,” Sora threw his hands weakly in the air, shaking his head as he frowned down at them, “going crazy or something! But…there’s this thing I keep seeing. Except not really? That’s kind of the whole point, I guess.”

Riku, a great deal more patient and delicate than he initially had been, looked to the other boy silently as he struggled to find a way to say what he wanted to. He watched his expression change from nervous to confused to nervous again. Watched his hands fiddle and pick at loose strings on his capris. Admired the faint, long healed scars on his skin, the backs of his knuckles and his arms and knees, proof of every hard-won battle he had faced for the good of a number of peoples he could not even begin to fathom. He was all awkward and lean muscle, and his hands were thin and bony, dirty-nailed and dirty-skinned, very stereotypical of a boy his type. Nothing like Kairi’s hands, which were scarred but soft and smooth and clean all the time, taken care of and pleasant to hold. Not that Sora’s hand wasn’t pleasant to hold, too. “You’re going to have to give me a little more detail than that, Sora,” Riku prodded gently after some time, pulling his gaze away from Sora’s hands and back to his face.

“Can I, um…ask you to take your clothes off?”

Riku blinked rapidly. He could feel the promise of a flushed face rising, felt his heartbeat stutter a little. “I’m sorry?”

Sora made a squawking noise and an exasperated gesture with his hands, shaking his head quickly, “Just your shirt! Just your shirt!” As if it was an explanation, “I just need to check something that’s all!”

“I’m only going to do this because I promised you I wouldn’t be weird about it,” Riku muttered through pursed lips, ears pink. He looked away from Sora as he slid off his jacket, dropping it in his lap. Riku grabbed the ends of his shirt and tried to pretend he couldn’t feel Sora’s bright blue eyes peering into him once again as he tugged it over his head and dropped it in his lap as well. It was suddenly very cold. Riku crossed his arms over his chest, tried to stifle the embarrassment he felt and replace it with a disgruntled manner. “So? What now?”

Sora scratched at the back of his head, giving Riku these funny side-eyed glances. “Let me just…” He started to move, crawl onto the bed and behind Riku, trying to balance himself on the soft mattress, having to brace his weight on Riku’s bare shoulder anyways. He situated himself with his knees folded on either side of Riku’s waist, his hands on both of the boy’s shoulders. Riku, in this process, had uncrossed his arms, and softened his expression, now that Sora was no longer directly able to view it. He glanced to his right as Sora’s thumb smoothed over his skin.

“There’s something here—I see it.” Sora placed a palm between Riku’s shoulder blades. His hand was warm, maybe a little damp. Sora always ran so damn warm, it was no wonder the cold bothered him so much. “When you train with me, or when we’re just talking, I see it here. It’s always faint and when I try to look closer, its gone, but I know there’s something right…here.” Brown fingers graze over pale skin, ever so gently.

Riku’s hands feel very empty and very in the way. He doesn’t know what to do with them. He lets them rest in closed fists on his thighs. “What does it look like?” His voice is low.

“Like…something I’ve seen before. A symbol. Sometimes it has colors—pink and yellow. Shiny and moving like a trillion little stars.”

“Something you’ve seen before?” Riku repeated, closing his eyes, trying to imagine it in his minds eye, “It is…the Dreameater symbol?”

And it clicks. Sora is so excited, he grips Riku around the middle with both hands, leaning forward. “Oh, that’s it! That must be it!” He leans back, returns his hands to their previous positions, but the burning heat is still there, warmth pooling under Riku’s skin, in his cheeks and in his chest.

“But why would you have the Dreameater symbol on your back? And how come I’m the only one who can see it?”

Riku’s brow pinches in. “Well,” he begins, slowly, as if he's unsure of what he's even saying himself, “do you remember when you went back into the Sleeping Realm? And I had to go in and save you?”

“Yeah. That was when you got the Power of Waking, right?” Sora is pressing closer again, frowning as he intakes every word Riku offers him. The gears are turning in his head, fast and desperate, “You used it to get me out. Wake me up.”

“Sort of,” Riku replied, nodding once, “I guess you wouldn’t know, since you were asleep, but Master Yen Sid, he told me then…the whole reason I could go back in to save you so easily wasn’t because I had the Power of Waking, it was because I’m your Dreameater, I guess.” Hastily, he added, “In a way, anyways. I mean obviously I’m not a bouncy, brightly colored monster, but he said it was something I was meant to do. Maybe he didn't mean it literally—maybe it was only meant that it’s my job to go in there and fight off your nightmares for you when you can’t, I don’t know. But maybe…that would explain it?” It was a hesitant, shaky theory, but given even _he_ hadn't seen the supposed Dreameater’s mark on his own back, and all he had to go on was some vague hint from Yen Sid and Sora’s frantic search for the truth, it was all Riku could offer.

Silence. Sora’s hands run down Riku’s back, and a shiver runs upwards in the opposite direction. Riku tries to look over his shoulder to see what the other boy is doing, but doing so would require him to twist, and twisting would pull him away from the warmth of Sora’s skin, and so he stayed still. He uttered his name, quietly and curiously.

In response, Sora’s forehead thumps gently on Riku’s back, right at the knot of bone at the beginning of his neck. His hair tickles Riku’s skin, and he arches away from the touch momentarily. Sora doesn’t seem to notice.

“You’re too good for me, Riku.”

It was spoken so quietly, Riku’s ears missed the most of it. He shifts a little, impulsively, trying to angle towards Sora, uncurling his hands from his lap. He stills very quickly though, and his fair brow draws in as he closes his eyes and listens intently. Sora’s hands on his back curl into loose fists, bony knuckles touching scarred skin. And now, a little louder this time:

“All this time, you’ve been protecting me in ways we don’t even understand. Protecting me without even realizing it. You’re amazing.”

Riku’s faces flushes, and he tucks his hands against his bare navel. “That’s not true,” he protested quietly, _I’m only trying to make up for what I’ve done,_ “I’m no better than you, or Kairi, or…”

“It _is_ true,” Sora’s voice is bolder now, low and serious. “Riku, you’ve never once let me down,” Riku opens his mouth to complain, to refute his kindness, but Sora does not see the beginnings of his speech, and carries on effectively, “You’ve gone into Darkness and come out fine. You’ve saved me and Kairi and even yourself over and over again. You can’t sit here and tell me you aren’t something special.” Riku starts to speak once more, but Sora continues on yet again, rubbing his forehead against his back, scrubbing his sweat-soft hair against his skin. “And now here you are again, looking out for me always. Always…”

Riku says nothing, doesn’t even attempt to this time. He opens his eyes and looks across to his bed, the covers thrown carelessly and lazily in a pathetic excuse of being made, in comparison to Kairi’s neatly done up blankets and fluffed pillows. He looks down to his hands, the hem of his arm warmer gripped in between his bent thumb and pointer finger. He rubs the knit fabric between the pads of his fingers, tightens his jaw. An uncomfortable tension builds in his throat—the threat of tears. It’s an unfamiliar feeling, but it seems like every time it comes up, it has something to do with Sora. How funny, that the only one who can get him crying like a child is the one person who makes him happiest of all.

“I love you, Riku.”

It’s not the first time he’s heard these words from Sora’s lips, but its one of the few times he’s heard them said so softly and privately before. In the silence and loneliness of their shared room, the words are loud and quiet all at once, sweet and heavy like honey. Riku’s lower lip quivers a little, and he catches it between his teeth to stop the oncoming flood before it can start. He takes a moment before speaking, for fear that his voice should come off unsteady.

“I love you more.”

And Sora’s arms sneak around his middle, and loop around his slender waist, thin with lithe, agile muscle, and he pushes his chest against Riku’s back, pressing the cold metal of his necklace to his frame. Riku places his hands over Sora’s without a moment of thought, squeezes them gently. Their fingers lace together, and the two boys exhale a shared, happy sigh. Sora presses a timid, little kiss to Riku’s back, along his spine. Through half-lidded eyes, and in the shadow of enclosure he has created between his curved body and Riku’s, a glow appears, pink and yellow, glittering and twinkling, in shape of a guardian’s mark. It illuminates the space between them, fills the shadow with warmth and light. Warm, saline tears drip down Sora’s nose and onto Riku’s back, and those thin arms tighten their grip.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3 Comments, requests, feedback, critique is all very much appreciated! Have a nice day!!


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